High Cholestrol & Gluten Free

Jellybaby1

My GP gave me a diet sheet recently to help me lose weight and lower my cholesterol. It's basically one of those food pyramids. Now, I'm Coeliac, and I don't eat any of those normal forbidden foods and my GP is well aware of that. I mainly eat fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, fish, gluten free porridge, just a little gluten free bread as I hate the stuff. I'm wondering how I can reduce my cholesterol as my diet seems pretty good to me, but by avoiding the gluten, am I making a mistake by raising my cholesterol with some other food? I gave up chocolate early last year for six months and then found I couldn't eat much of it any more. I must be going wrong somewhere. Any advice would be appreciated.

Twiggy69

Having been recently diagnosed as Gluten, Dairy and Potato intolerant, I have embraced the Gluten Free lifestyle and while it has improved my quality of life, and feeling of well beig, it does open the door to very unhealthy choices. To control my Cholesterol and hopefully loose some more weight, I am adapting the Slimming World regieme to exclude my intolerances and make fresh veg and fruit the core of my diet/lifestyle . So I feel I am getting the best of both worlds.

I will be interested to hear whatever other suggestions are made to you. Good luck with your endeavours.

T

Stheno

What do you eat in a normal day?

Jellybaby1

Breakfast: GF porridge with 4 spoons of mixed flaxseed/linseed/sesame seed plus milky tea with sugar.

Elevenses: Milky tea with sugar

Lunch: One of the following:
Eggs scrambled or boiled
Gluten free jam / ham / cheese sandwich (1.5 slices of Gouda or Edam)
1 banana
2 mandarin oranges
Small bowl of mixed salad consisting of lettuce, egg, tomato, salad cream
Plus milky tea with sugar

Afternoon: Milky tea with sugar

Snacks: Mandarin Oranges /Apples (Pink Lady) / occasional Curly Wurly.

Dinner: Potato mashed with milk, butter (approx 1oz butter & shared between 3 people) and salt, (roast potatoes on rare occasions), meat (steak/chop/chicken/boiled ham/poached or steamed cod/poached or steamed salmon), Veg (carrots, green beans, peas, swede,). No gravies or sauces though I crave them!

Edit: Also for main meal I'd have mince in the guise of, possibly shepherd's pie, or possibly a Chilli including red pepper kidney beans and chickpeas and the chilli sauce was home made using knorr gravy granules, tinned tomatos, tomato paste, garlic. (had that today, yum!)

Evening: Apple (always Pink Lady)

Supper: Milky tea with sugar.

In the summer I would have more salads and poached salmon for lunch or dinner.

That's basically my daily diet with very rare changes. Its a very plain diet.

Jellybaby1

Does the silence mean that my diet is almost perfect? No-one can offer me any advice then? My next step is to increase my walking hours in the week and hopefully that might help. I don't think I can reduce my food much more anyway.

Harika

For me it took forever to lower my cholesterol and from what I see you are doing very well in your diet. What you can improve is cutting out the red meat or replace the mince with turkey mince. Also you could replace the butter and milk (I assume you use whole milk) with skimmed/soy milk.
From my personal experience, I think moving helped me quite a lot to reduce cholesterol levels as my diet was perfect but cholesterol stayed high until I upped the training.

Jellybaby1

Harika wrote: »

For me it took forever to lower my cholesterol and from what I see you are doing very well in your diet. What you can improve is cutting out the red meat or replace the mince with turkey mince. Also you could replace the butter and milk (I assume you use whole milk) with skimmed/soy milk.
From my personal experience, I think moving helped me quite a lot to reduce cholesterol levels as my diet was perfect but cholesterol stayed high until I upped the training.

Thank you Harika. I always use Avonmore Supermilk which I was told to use by the doctor after I had my first bone scan years ago, often wondered if she was getting commission for recommending it. Occasionally for a treat I use Clonburris whole milk from Aldi as it reminds me of what milk used to taste like. But usually its Supermilk, I never use low fat because as far as I'm concerned its almost water. Steak/mince I only have at most twice a week anyway but I can't see me reducing that any more. As you say, exercise is probably what will help. I did a good 50min march this morning and will do the same tomorrow. Thanks again.

Zillah

Stop having five cups of sugary tea every day - there's a very obvious step 1. Tea is fine, constant influx of refined sugar not so much. No jam sandwiches for lunch (good lord), and a curly wurly isn't exactly an ideal snack either.

http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20100420/high-sugar-diet-linked-lower-good-cholesterol

People in the study who ate the most added sugar had the lowest HDL, or good cholesterol, and the highest blood triglyceride levels. People who ate the least sugar had the highest HDL and the lowest triglyceride levels.

http://preventivecardiologyinc.com/cholesterol-myth/

If you’ve been trying to reduce high blood cholesterol levels, you might be surprised to learn that sugars, even more than saturated fats, are the main culprits contributing to your problem.

Do you exercise?
http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/features/exercise-to-lower-cholesterol

First, exercise stimulates enzymes that help move LDL from the blood (and blood-vessel walls) to the liver. From there, the cholesterol is converted into bile (for digestion) or excreted. So the more you exercise, the more LDL your body expels.

dastardly00

OP, out of curiosity, how much sugar do you add to your tea? 1 teaspoon? 2? 3?

Jellybaby1

The only reason I might have a Gluten Free jam sandwich would be that there is nothing else Gluten Free in the house for me to eat except eggs or fruit which I have most of the time anyway so the odd GF sambo is really just chosen out of desperation.

I take 1.5 tsps of sugar in a mug of tea. I can't bear cold water but last summer I switched to tepid water with a little lemon juice replacing the tea twice a day. I tend to be seasonal. In winter I need to take in some heating and take a lot of home made soups and tea.

Exercise - I used to do a lot of hill walking but this has trickled off in recent years due to health problems. I am returning to walking again, Saturday last I did a 2.5 hour walk, today 50 mins, and probably tomorrow another hour. Exercise will probably be my saviour.

Zillah

That's 7.5 spoons of sugar every day just from tea. That's doing you no favours. You can have all the tea you like, just try to get used to it without sugar.

As for exercise: is there anything more intense you can do? I am guessing you are overweight from the context so sprinting wouldn't be ideal, but walking is only moderately effective. Something that gets the heart racing would be much better. A weights class could be very useful (and a lot more time efficient!).

Jellybaby1

Zillah wrote: »

That's 7.5 spoons of sugar every day just from tea. That's doing you no favours. You can have all the tea you like, just try to get used to it without sugar.

As for exercise: is there anything more intense you can do? I am guessing you are overweight from the context so sprinting wouldn't be ideal, but walking is only moderately effective. Something that gets the heart racing would be much better. A weights class could be very useful (and a lot more time efficient!).

I agree, the sugar is OTT and I must try and cut down but I will find that hard. In my 60's now, I was fed the stuff (for energy!) as a child! So I am addicted to sugar in my tea now. I'm not vastly overweight, and to lose a stone would be as much as I need. My walks tend to be more of a march really and my heart does get pumping. Sorry, I don't even know what a 'weights class' is. My hubby's on more or less the same diet as me mainly due to convenience but he is able to have Weetabix and ordinary wholegrain bread, and his cholestrol has sunk down to 4.8. Neither of us know how that happened. His used to be 6.5 and mine is still 6.7.

Zillah

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

My hubby's on more or less the same diet as me mainly due to convenience but he is able to have Weetabix and ordinary wholegrain bread, and his cholestrol has sunk down to 4.8. Neither of us know how that happened.

Does he take sugar in his tea?

Jellybaby1

Zillah wrote: »

Does he take sugar in his tea?

Y' got me there! No, he doesn't! And never did. Even when his cholesterol was quite high.

Yeah I can't think of much either except maybe replace a sandwich with some fish like you were saying, and cut down on the sugars
You can retrain your taste buds sugar wise anyway - cut it out entirely for a while and you'll find it sickeningly sweet when you go back to it

Jellybaby1

bluewolf wrote: »

Yeah I can't think of much either except maybe replace a sandwich with some fish like you were saying, and cut down on the sugars
You can retrain your taste buds sugar wise anyway - cut it out entirely for a while and you'll find it sickeningly sweet when you go back to it

You're probably right. This happened to me with chocolate. I must persevere I suppose. Many thanks to all to offered suggestions. I know its all sensible.

Zillah

Jellybaby1 wrote: »

You're probably right. This happened to me with chocolate. I must persevere I suppose. Many thanks to all to offered suggestions. I know its all sensible.

I don't know which would work better: taking a cold-turkey break from sugar to reset your taste buds, or to slowly reduce the amount of sugar in your tea and hope you get used to it.

You could also try something else entirely, like herbal or fruit tea, for a change.

Jellybaby1

If I went cold turkey I'd be a mess with withdrawal symptoms! A gentle reduction might suit me better. Monday I will make a start, no not today, tomorrow or Sunday, Monday!

The Raptor

I used to love sugary tea. I lost some weight years ago and replaced the sugar with sweeteners. I can't have sweeteners anymore and i don't miss it. I don't miss the sugar either. I did actually put the weight back on but i never reintroduced sugar. I find it makes me gag now.

mulbot

"Cholestrol is also determined by a person's genetics,bodytype and also hormones can have an effect,so sometimes even if the diet is near perfect you can have oddly high readings"

That was told to me by my GP and I've kind gone along with this line of thinking-You might know people with a bad(ish) diet and low number,then you might get a perfect diet and a high(ish)number. I know my father-in-law has a reading slightly over 4,typical old-fashioned type Irish diet too,you would expect it to be crazy high(oddly enough,he is quite skinny and is always sick,not sure if anything there is any connection though)

Jellybaby1

As my hubby eats the same main meals as me and he has low cholesterol and mine is high it definitely bears that out. His used to be as high as mine and he hasn't changed much of his diet over the decades, so his body can bring it down but my body just stores the stuff!

Pollys

Jellybaby1, I was diagnosed Coeliac 18mth ago. When I went back for a 12mth checkup my consultant advised me to keep an eye on my cholesterol as it could begin to rise as I am now absorbing the food I'm eating.

Afraid this doesn't help but may explain what's happening

Jellybaby1

Pollys wrote: »

Jellybaby1, I was diagnosed Coeliac 18mth ago. When I went back for a 12mth checkup my consultant advised me to keep an eye on my cholesterol as it could begin to rise as I am now absorbing the food I'm eating.

Afraid this doesn't help but may explain what's happening

Don't think this applies to me as I have Coeliac disease about 20 years now and the weight has only started to creep up over the last 5 or 6 years.

goat2

I know I joined an old thread,
but just a few weeks ago I was tested and found to have high cholesterol, I did not know that gluten played a part in it until reading the above comments, great to find out this, also I have changed to low fat milk, low spread, no fries, no takeaways, but this gluten free I must have a go at, also I am finding that the statin I have been put on is causing severe constipation, even though I am a fairly avid drinker of water tea coffee also would love to hear if there is an alternative I could take to get rid of this statin

Meeeee79

Im in a similar situation with a recent high cholesterol reading but to my amazement even after researching it I too never knew about the link between gluten and cholesterol! My understanding was that the advise is to cut down on processed foods in general, cut down on red meat, include fish in your diet, include meat free days if possible, eat plenty of veg, fruit, fibre etc and reduce dairy products such as cheese, milk etc as these are high cholesterol containing foods.

I do know that cholesterol is sometimes not related to diet and your genetics may determine whether or not you have cholesterol issues but I will definitely try the gluten free and see if it has any effect. I am trying to avoid taking statins at all so hopefully I am one of the ones who's diet has an effect on their levels

goat2

Meeeee79 wrote: »

Im in a similar situation with a recent high cholesterol reading but to my amazement even after researching it I too never knew about the link between gluten and cholesterol! My understanding was that the advise is to cut down on processed foods in general, cut down on red meat, include fish in your diet, include meat free days if possible, eat plenty of veg, fruit, fibre etc and reduce dairy products such as cheese, milk etc as these are high cholesterol containing foods.

I do know that cholesterol is sometimes not related to diet and your genetics may determine whether or not you have cholesterol issues but I will definitely try the gluten free and see if it has any effect. I am trying to avoid taking statins at all so hopefully I am one of the ones who's diet has an effect on their levels

when the doc told me that I had this, he advised me to include green tea in my diet also. I hate the taste of the green tea, did not enjoy it, but instead bought the green tea capsules, just one a day is all I need also I am taking the omega 3 oils, and find that after 8 weeks at moment taking them, my finger nails are so strong and healthy no chipping any more, like steel, also the hair is improving along with a pain I have had on one shoulder with past two yrs it is gone, delighted with this, will take them for ever more, as I can visually see the improvement as well as physically feel it also, potatoes are full of starch co have cut down on them, and anything that has gluten does not help either, but we can see we can get lots of gluten free these days which is great,

Jellybaby1

Pity GF products are so expensive, but I avoid those and cook all our own meals and make 'normal' recipes GF using cornflour, etc.

pinkypinky

Isn't there a small tax break for medically necessary foods?

Alf Veedersane

pinkypinky wrote: »

Isn't there a small tax break for medically necessary foods?

You can claim via the Med 1 form. You can't claim for foods that are naturally gluten-free though.